Watch: Leopard finds himself surrounded by a pride of lions [video]

Watch as a leopard finds himself surrounded by a pride of lions in the Kruger National Park.

Latest Sightings recently shared footage of the nerve-wracking moment when a male leopard found himself surrounded by a pride of lions in the Kruger National Park.

Kerry Balaam, long time Latest Sightings Member who has shared over 1 000 sightings and professional guide that runs Kruger Pride Safaris, watched this exciting scene play itself out over the August long weekend while on a drive with her guests for Kruger Pride Safaris and Birdsong Lodge.

“Just after my guests and I left Lower Sabie camp, one of the busiest camps in the Kruger Park, we found a pride of lions,” Balaam told Latest Sightings about the sighting. “The lions started walking and so we were following them. The pride male seemed very interested in the lionesses. That male lion and one of the lionesses started running towards a bush and chased this leopard that must have been hiding behind the rocks. Within moments, the whole pride was surrounding the leopard!”

The video shows the leopard acting quite submissively.

“He was lying down, keeping himself small. His head was down and his ears were flat, all techniques to show to the lions that he wanted to survive uninjured and that he wouldn’t attack if they wouldn’t.”

The leopard was supposedly trying his best to let the lions know he wasn’t going to cause any trouble if they just let him go.

“Lions tend to have a very short attention span. It seems as if they just wanted to check if the leopard was going to put a fight, saw that he meant no harm and then they got distracted. While the lions were distracted, the leopard saw the perfect opportunity to escape the danger. It got up, sneaked away and then ran for its life!”

The lions gave a bit of a chase after the leopard, but then carried on sleeping on the rocks for the rest of the day.